


Till death do us part

by Snedlimpan



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, F/F, My First Fanfic, Oh My God, Other, Sad Ending, Tags Are Hard, nangijala
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-11 18:41:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20550866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snedlimpan/pseuds/Snedlimpan
Summary: After a little research, I found out that Anne Lister died 1840 in a town in present-day Georgia (the country, not the American state), which I believe was colonised by Russia at the time. Honestly, that was one of the most sad things ever, jesus christ. Poor Ann! Either way, den enes död den andres bröd (one man's death, another man's bread), as we say in Sweden, so I came up with this story. It is written from Ann's perspective, and I have tried to be detailed and consistent.





	1. 1840

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic published here, I'm really nervous about it for some reason....  
Either way, it's about Anne's death, because I don't know. It just happened. I am not a native English speaker, I usually write in Swedish, so I genuinely hope I didn't fuck this up. Please leave a comment if you liked it.

The small room on the third floor of Kutaisi’s main hotel had an awful smell about it. It wasn’t just the outdated decor with furniture which had seen better days, but the windows seemed nail-shut, and so new air couldn’t possibly make its way in. The four-poster bed in the middle of the room had probably been a beautiful work of craftmanship once upon a time, but now the varnish had worn out and the mattress and the sheets were moth-eaten. The paintings were since long ago sun-bleached, and so were the green-gold wallpaper. The very floorboards seemed to have shrivelled up, leaving wide cracks between one another. All of this, however, could be tolerated, since its present inhabitants hadn’t planned on staying for long. Yet the smell of the old and perished lingered, and it was the stank which had made a foreboding feeling set place in one of the inhabitants. Indeed, she could see past all the other downsides of this room, she had always had a good imagination, and if she tried hard enough, she could see the room for what it once must have been: a handsome, fresh room, suited for finer people.

But on the third day with the same foul stench, which had only grown worse over the course of their stay, what with two people living and breathing in there, one of them ill, Ann Walker’s foreboding feeling was replaced with a calm panic. She marched over to the window and saw that the fresh paint had worked as a glue, when it had dropped between the cracks. She tried with all her might to yank it open, but alas, it remained shut. The calmness which she had forced on herself, for the sake of her wife, was threatening to leave her for good. Tears welled up in her eyes, and the lump she had had in her chest for the past days, rose up to her throat. She couldn’t swallow, she could barely even breathe. She closes her eyes, with her forehead leaning against the cold glass, thinking calming thoughts. Her eyes open when the bustle of the street below rises alarmingly high, a little boy hit by one of the carriages. The accident is severe and reminds Ann of a summer-day some eight years ago, where another boy lost a leg, and she can’t help herself from staring down at the commotion. It is first when a loud, rattling breath comes from the unconscious wife that she can turn away from the window and return to the bedside.

Ann Walker knew she should have insisted on going home, not to let Anne talk her into continuing. She cursed herself for giving into her wife’s obsession with traveling. Now here they are, in a Godforsaken room somewhere in Russia, with her dear Anne unconsciously on the bed, burning hot with fever. Ann is doing her best, she tries with all her might to cool her down, to cure the illness. But on some level, she knows it’s a hopeless cause, because the fever came out of nowhere just two days ago, and her wife is already unresponsive. It must have been the air; they were surrounded by poor air from the moment they arrived, she was convinced. The younger woman in the lilac dress is praying for a miracle, hoping that her tears will wake her beloved up, just like in the fairy tales she read as a child. In an almost convulsive way is she holding the warm and limp hand of the love of her life.

“Please Anne, please. Don’t leave me.”

The plead slips out of her, unexpectedly, after hours of silence. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. The begging words echoed against the cold walls, in a similar way to how her thought always echoes in her head. Maybe she had in fact, never spoken? But Anne’s watery eyes open, she blinks repeatedly, and then says hoarsely,

“Ann, dearest… water.”

Ann help her to some water, praying it won’t make it worse; who knows what kind of illnesses this water contains? But Anne perks up a little, she is even smiling faintly towards Ann, who cannot smile back. All she can see is the ghostly pale face, which belongs to a person who always had red cheeks from walking in a fast pace. The brown, beautiful eyes have a sad glimmer, they are red and watery, with black circles around the eyes. Her once pink lips are dried and cracked. So, the forbidden thought breaks free inside, and screams _is this the last smile? Is this the last words_? She leans down and kisses her wife’s forehead.

The door opens, and in comes the groom. He hands over a bowl of cold water and fresh towels. He says it’s the best water he can get hold on. It doesn’t go lost on Ann, that the groom’s worried as well, with his pale face and serious expression. She nods as a thank you, he understands he is no longer needed nor wanted in the room. Anne Lister doesn’t give off any signs of noticing the young man, not even when he shoots her a quick glance, before retrieving back the servants’ quarters. Alone again. The silence is unbearable, with only the silent but steady ticking of a clock, a constant reminder that nothing last forever. Anne is the first to give in and breaks it.

“Ann?”

“Please Anne, save your strength. I _need_ you to recover.”

“Ann, I love you.”

“Oh Anne, I love you too, I always have. So therefore, you cannot leave me.”

“Ann, you know me. I always survive the scrapes I put myself in.”

“I know, Anne, I want to trust you. Please don’t let this be the last one, I cannot go home to Halifax without you. I … just cannot.” The Tribe™ would be excruciatingly gleeful, all the while her hometown has lost one of its most prominent inhabitants, an emptiness which cannot be filled ever again. Ann quickly glance at the door, then joins her wife in the bed. She is damned if she can’t hold her wife’s warm body in her arms when she needs it the most.

“Have some courage Ann, I will come with you home.” Anne mumbles quietly to her love’s chest. She smells heavenly, as usual, and it calms her down now in her last minutes. She knows she’s lying.

Anne leans her head on wife’s shoulder, about to fall into sleep again. She won’t tell her wife that she is equally scared, for she has a feeling that she will soon meet her creator. Before she falls asleep, she tilts her head up, and breaths into her beloved Ann’s neck and nibble cautiously at her jawline, the way she always signalling for a kiss. Ann recognizes her wife’s request and land a gentle kiss on her lips. A minute later Anne falls into unconsciousness again, from which she will never return from. Ann hold her tight and whispers,

“I will miss you forever, my dearest Anne.”

Ann would be by her wife’s side through sickness and in health until death do them part, as she vowed eight years ago. Only, she had hoped it wouldn’t be happening so soon. Eight years was all they had gotten, eight fleeting years. It wasn’t nearly enough, so when Anne Lister of Shibden Hall drew her last breath, Ann’s life stopped as well. It is now Ann’s turn to wear black.

The tiny clock on the drawer continue its ticking, but now it starts to whisper things to Ann. The spirits in the clock have followed her all the way to Russia. She is not worried; they stopped being evil to her years ago. At present, they only whisper their consolation, and she doesn’t feel quite as alone as she could have been. Gently, she whispers back to them, a wish, to look after her wife’s spirit until it is safely on the other side. When the clock is just a clock again, Ann calls for Eugenie and Thomas.

The way back home felt like an eternity wrapped up in a second. It was bumpy and uncomfortable in many ways, but for Ann Walker it was unbearable. She was hollow, with a ferocious wind tearing her insides apart. Eyes dry and wet at the same time, her head beating as much as her heart. Instead of holding Anne’s hand, she grips tightly her pocket-watch. It isn’t wound up. It hasn’t been since Anne did it last time, several days ago. Yes, almost a week. In the corner stands the big thermometer; it’s 12°C in here.

She wrote a letter ahead to tell Marian about the sister’s demise. Ann knew she will take is hard, with her father’s and her aunt’s passing, just a few years ago. Of all the friends and family of Anne Lister, it is her sister whom Ann knew she can seek comfort in. Indeed, over the past few years, the two women had developed a friendship. As if they really were sisters-in-law. Only she will understand the hollowness aching inside her, and why her relentless sadness is appropriate. In the end Ann realised her wife’s last promise came true: she is coming with her home. Ann couldn’t leave her body behind. Her love can’t be laid to rest in an anonymous grave, hundreds of miles from home. No, piece would find her spirit at home, and home alone. Near her not-so-shabby Shibden.

The new Miss Lister of Shibden Hall watched the carriage arrive from the window, and slowly made her way to great her sister-in-law, her dear sister’s widow. The two women’s eyes met; both are crying. Ann embraced Marian, both seeking and offering comfort. Marian smells like Shibden, in a way which is similar to her older sister, making Ann realise she can’t live in a home of Anne’s without her. It would be too painful, she will go back to Crow Nest, and hope The Tribe™ will treat her like the mourning widow she is. Marian is simply staring at the carriage carrying the casket, knowing her sister’s remains are hidden in there. And for the first time it struck her; she will never see her sister again, and she falls to the ground. She can’t keep it in anymore, and she is yelling out her pain.


	2. 1854

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last moments of Ann Walker of Crow Nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to my girlfriend!
> 
> Also I had to edit it, because between 1840 to 1854 is 14 years. 13 years of school and I counted 12??? Well done, Snedlimpan, excellent job.

Seasons come and go, for time doesn’t stop because you want it to. Day by day you dwell in your sorrow, until you realise that weeks, months and years have passed by without you noticing it. Whether you want it or not, the constant of time keeps making you move forward. You are never in the same place now as you were just a second ago. It’s a difficult task to understand this; time is independent of you, while you are at its mercy. For the sun will still shine when you are not here to enjoy it. The wind will stroke or whip objects in its way, when you can’t feel it anymore. Human lives will continue to walk the earth, whilst you are returning to nature.

This was the true lesson Ann Walker had to learn; that she must continue forward and leave Anne behind. How could life be so cruel? Of course, Ann wasn’t unaccustomed to death. Logically, we all know our own turn will eventually come. We were once born; and we will die, it’s the very premises of life. And she had lost people she loved in the past; her parents and brother amongst others. So why was it worse this time?

She had loved her family too, and she couldn’t say she had loved them less than she had loved Anne. But love to a family member is different. You love them not because you have chosen it, you love them because they are your family, regardless of what you think of their person. But with your partner, you love them exclusively for who they are, it’s a choice to let them into your life, to trust them, to share with them. And Ann had been so lonely when she took the chance to let Anne in. She was settled in her fate as a loner for the rest of her life. And there she had been; a person to prove otherwise. And now she was gone from Ann too. It had apparently gone almost 14 years since.

The memories were still with her though. Elizabeth had told her after their mother’s funeral, that the ones you love continue to live in your memories. Yet Ann feared thinking back to those fantastic eight years she was fortunate enough to spend with Anne Lister. She knew that her memories would grow old and faint, and all those little details would go missing. In a childlike hope, she thought that if she didn’t _use _the memories, but tucked them in safely inside, they would stay the same. Almost like storing your most treasured jewelries in a box, refusing to wear them every day.

This didn’t work however, because she would be bombarded each day with smells, sounds and other stimuli from her senses, which reminded her of one or another specific time she spent with her wife. Those occurrences would devour Ann and put her through a bittersweet misery. She still, after more than a decade, loved Anne, and the love even now was very much the light she had in her dark life. But that was painful, she couldn’t deny this. To this very day, she cursed over that trip, the one Anne just _had to _take. To Russia of all places. And Ann remembered her aunt’s warning at the time: “remember, your brother died in Naples”. A prophesy, a promise of her death if she dared to leave. It struck Ann afterwards, that it perhaps didn’t mean that she herself would perish abroad, but another loved one. Like the curse that it was, it always struck when she had the audacity of feeling happy and content.

For Ann had been very happy indeed. Living together with Anne, she had explored more of the world than she ever thought possible. She had learnt that being alive wasn’t equal to suffering. All those walks they had taken; the rounds of backgammon and all those conversations still warmed her heart. She thought of cold winter nights, curled up together. Those warm summer nights when the duvet was too warm, so they lied sprawled out on the bed, careful not to touch the other. The creaking of the floorboards in Shibden. All of those banal things she didn’t even consider back then, but means everything today, are keeping Ann sane.

Her family on the other hand, considered her insane. Maybe she was, since she kept hearing Anne’s voice or seeing her walk down the streets, for a second later realise it wasn’t her but a random stranger. The kind voices in the grandfather-clock had been Ann’s only company, and she had spoken to them in return. Did it matter that no one else could hear them? That no one could see whom the voice belonged to? Anne told her once about a philosopher who said that there are no objective truths. That can only come from God, and God alone, all other knowledge comes from your senses, and your perception might not be the same as others’. She could only live in her own reality., and in her world the voices existed, it didn’t have to mean that it was wrong. Ann had tried to explain this for the doctor at the asylum she was sent to, but in vain.

She didn’t confide in anyone these days, she would rather be quiet for the rest of her idiotic existence, than spend a day more in that asylum. She still heard the voices, they had even told her their names, and she did intend to keep talking with them. However, she only did it when she knew no one else could hear it. To this day, Ann could not believe the cruelty of her “family”, for God’s sake, she had just lost her wife, yet they got her declared insane and locked her away. Not even her best friend and cousin Catherine was pardoned, Ann would never forgive them. Not for the rest of her life.

Ann did, nevertheless, wonder why she had been forced to live this long without her wife. She had been a widow longer than a wife. For years had she thought about ending it herself but was told repeatedly that it was a sin. Risking losing Anne even in the afterlife was a threat effective enough to stay alive until it was her time. So, she had been patient, trying to move on with her own life. But now she was ready, which she kept telling Him, and all that anxiety regarding Death was gone. Ann wouldn’t fear him when he came to pick her up, she would greet Death as a welcomed guest, whom she had had acquainted a long time ago.

And so, one evening when Ann had retired to bed, gotten undressed and washed, she saw the most peculiar thing. On her windowsill sat a dove. A white dove with its head tilted, staring at her. The two of them looked at each other, as if to determine who was more surprised to see the other. Ann was indeed astonished and decided to draw it. She fetched her book and pencils before she sat down on the bed again. It was a long time since she had felt a pen in her hand, and the paper’s coarseness, but she still had it in her. The first empty page is next to a portrait of Anne, which she drew on a café in Paris. She gently strokes the image of her wife; the colours have miraculously stayed fresh through the years. Ann feels it fitting that this handsome dove shall sit next to Anne, as if they somehow belong to each other. She lifts her head up again when she sees movement out of the corner of her eye. The bird had nestled itself through the window standing ajar and is now perked up on her bedside table. Smiling, she starts sketching it.

Afterwards when it’s completed, she felt a serenity she hadn’t felt in years. Before settling herself in bed for the night, she walks across the room to her drawer. In the secret fold in the second box from the left Ann pulls out a golden engagement ring, a French onyx cabochon with a rose-cut diamond. She hid it, in case someone should try to take it from her. Ann kissed it before she put it on her left hand’s ring-finger. Now she is ready. The handsome dove is cleaning its right wing, still on her bedside table.

She laid down in bed, closed her eyes and fell asleep. She thought she felt a warm hand on her forehead and her nose filled with the scent of her wife. Miss Ann Walker of Crow Nest never woke up again in this life.


	3. 2019

Anne Lister woke up early. Dead or alive, she loved standing by the window and look out as the light returned. It wasn’t a sunrise, no, but she had no other word for it in her vocabulary. And she prides herself with a rich vocabulary. So, she stood there in her nightgown, watching as the light returned to this world, occasionally she peaked back towards the bed to make sure her wife was still sleeping. She smiled and went back to observing the light, her wife was a sleeper, no doubt, and wouldn’t awake any time soon. Though it had been many years since she left earth, she still remembers how a sunrise looked like. It starts in the east, a red-orange stripe, pushing back the marine-blue colour of the sky. The bright colours grow stronger and manages to expel more and more of the blue. Suddenly the yellow colour arrives to the gathering, and by then, one usually feels how the rays of the sun warms the ground. That is, of course, depending on which season it is, but with the yellow comes the warmth, a simple statement which Anne knows is empirically tested and true.

The sunrise here is different, duller and less stunning. It doesn’t feel like a miracle in the same way, it isn’t a symbol of the richness and joy that nature provides. It’s more of a slowly transit from dark grey to white, as if someone has slowly lit a fire, but you are behind a cloth. From your standpoint, the light is increasing proportional and equally on the entire piece of fabric*. One must simply see it for themselves.

She detested it when she first arrived, mainly because it was the ultimate proof that she, Anne, now lived in a complete other world, a place without Ann Walker. True to her habit though, she counted each and every return of the light, and it was 5013 of those until she met her wife again. One can also describe it as such: 13 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and 2 days. More to this can be said; it was also pure agony.

“Anne, won’t you please come back to bed?”

Anne was startled by her wife’s sudden speech. She hummed as a way of affirmation and curled down under the duvet again. As her wife tucked herself neatly into Anne’s embrace, soon asleep again, Anne kept pondering. It had always been difficult not to think. She had at some point met a monk from the orient whilst walking around, familiarising herself with her new home. Intrigued by his colourful frock, she had sparked up a conversation with him, and after a friendly chat, he agreed to teach her meditation. Anne had troubles with this practise from the very start. It wasn’t so peculiar then, that she laid in bed thinking, while her wife was still sleeping. Said woman was, however, more often than not, the very plot and main character of her thoughts.

After her own sudden demise all those years ago, she had followed Ann’s life on a distance. She would have preferred to be considerably much closer, but hey ho. She realised that much of what happened was her own fault, or at least, she was the first domino-brick in the course of events. If she had listened to Ann’s concern, and steered them home instead towards Russia, she could have lived longer. Of course, being 12 years older it was safe to assume she would have died before her wife either way. But dying from a fever of some sort in the midst of Russia at the age of 49, was a tad unpredictable. Ann’s anxiety seemed to have seen it coming however, which is why Anne felt responsible to be more attentive to her wife when they finally got to reunite. Hadn’t it been Anne who assured the tedious woman that not everyone who dares to go abroad must die? And hadn’t it been Anne who done the very thing she swore wouldn’t happen?

“Every time you’re gone, I think I am back at Cliff Hill again, without you.” Ann mumbled.

Anne was quiet before she knew how to comfort Ann, struggling to find the right thing to say, but soon realised the younger woman was already back to sleep. So, she laid there on her back, with her wife’s head on her shoulder, knowing that this is how it’s supposed to be.

**X-X-X **

When Ann finally decided it was time to start the new day, they got up, got dressed and made the bed together. She opened the curtains again and looked out of the window. Together they stood by the window, embraced. The view always amazed Ann. The huge city, bright and colourful, shining like gold. It was a bit shocking the first time she laid her eyes on it, when she suddenly had landed right in front of it.

Mesmerised, she had not seen the gate and the gatekeeper and walked right past them. Until she got called back to it. It turned out to be more of a hotel-reception than a judge’s stand, Ann was more relieved by that than she would like to admit.

_“Name, please.”_

_Ann had been all too flabbergasted to even speak. As preoccupied she had been with the view of the town, now she couldn’t help staring at the older woman behind the desk. She knew she must look foolish, but her mind was blank all the same._

_“Her name is Ann Walker, Cheryl. From Halifax.” Said a dark voice behind her, as Ann felt a warm, tender hand on her lower back. She turned her head around and found herself looking into those familiar dark, brown eyes with a playful twinkle in them. Good Lord had she missed those eyes. _

_The woman behind the desk gave a little amused laugh. Ann didn’t turn around to face her again, she closed her eyes and leaned her head on a familiar shoulder._

_“Okay Ann, welcome. I see you have a lovely friend to help you out. But for legal reasons I am obliged to inform you that you have died. This is one of the places where we “live”. There are a few other towns, which you can travel to, in the event you want to find your deceased relatives. However, they might not still be here, which I also must inform you for legal reasons. You have gotten assigned house 643494, but you can arrange another living situation if you wish to live with a loved one. I see here that you were married and that your spouse is still here. I assume this spouse of yours is the lovely friend here, who picked you up? Anne Lister nodded._

_“She has set up home in house 201643 and you are probably more than welcome to stay there. You are also entitled to a full tour of the town once you have settled down and packed up properly. Here is a note with all important information.” Anne Lister took the note, folded it neatly, and tucked it into one of her pockets in her vest. _

_Ann reacted to one part of that sentence, because it made no sense to her. Confused, she raised her head from Anne’s shoulder and directed her question to the desk-lady. _

_“Packed up? I-I don’t have anything… with me. And I don’t really understand what ‘might not still here’ means.”_

_“Your suitcase is already in your assigned house, with your most treasured belongings. Clothes and such are being taken care of by us. And this place isn’t the last destination, it can be for some who feel contend and done, while others choose to be reincarnated. It is likely that this is not your soul’s first time around, you will see that more and more memories from your past lives are coming back as time progresses.”_

_“So how do I get to my house?”_

_“Don’t worry, Ann, darling. I will take us there so we can pick up your suitcase and bring it over to my house, hmm?” _

_The receptionist suddenly turned over to greet an older man, apparently too busy to say good-bye. Hand in hand they walked through the gate, making their way over to a horseless carriage. _

_“Ann! I forgot to ask if you wanted to live with me. Do you? It’s no Shibden, unfortunately, but it is good enough.”_

_“Of course, I want to live with you, Anne. You needn’t ask such things.” She answered as her wife helped her up into the carriage._

_The sit in silence in the carriage, just enjoying each other’s presence, whilst the carriage is taking them upwards the cobblestone road. The two women end up sitting closer and closer by, whenever the carriage struggles through a small bump in the road. Ann had been pondering about a certain thing concerning Anne’s sudden appearance, she had joined Ann by her left side, while the town lay on her right. Shouldn’t Anne then logically have arrived from there?_

_“Anne?”_

_“Hmm?” Anne was obviously preoccupied with her own thoughts._

_“Where were you just before meeting me by the desk? Were you doing something particular?”_

_“What do mean Ann”, she said, while meeting her gaze._

_“Well you didn’t come from the town, so it just made me a tad confused.”_

_“Ann, don’t you remember? I picked you up.”_

_“Yes, I know, but before that?”_

_“Ann, darling, I came to you in your bedroom at Cliff Hill, and helped you on your way here. Don’t you remember it at all? You painted me.”_

When Anne thought that they had stood still doing nothing long enough, when her restlessness couldn’t be contained anymore, she brought her wife back from her thoughts by turning her away from the window and kissed her.

“What has your mind so fired up, miss Walker? I think I can even make out a smell of burnt, coming from your head.” Anne said, smirking.

“Don’t be glib, Anne. I was just thinking of my first time here. Thank goodness you came to fetch me. At least to I thought then, but now I realise I got trapped with you and your humour again.” She smirked back, moving her hand up over her wife’s shoulder and down on her back, hugging her more closely.

“Well, I couldn’t be without my Ann. Who else could stand my humour? And I had missed you, truly, so when I was informed it was almost your time, I had a polite skirmish with death on who would come to fetch you. I won, quite easily too. The Rawson’s put up a better fight, if I might say so.”

“I thought you would had forgotten all about me.”

Anne sighed, her wife would apparently never realise, how much she meant to Anne. It was a battle she couldn’t win, so she settled for a kiss instead of arguing.

“So, Ann, what is our plan for today? We could have tea with my Aunt before her reincarnation, or meet your parents at the golf court? I simply cannot remain still today. I would even settle for a town-walk with Marian.”

“You don’t mean it, Anne, not even if that was the very last thing to do. I am tempted to pick the Marian-option just to tease you.”

“Very well, miss Walker. It would seem like I have backed myself into a trap. But please, you must be the one to call her, I simply cannot bring myself to do it.”

“Would it really kill you to just admit you love your sister? I know you do.”

“I am telling you this as a dead woman, Ann, yes it would literally kill me.”

With a hand on her wife’s cheek, Ann says,

“You are hopelessly ridiculous, Anne. I love you.”

She walks over to the so-called “phone” and dials the house number belonging to Marian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Like one of those eco-friendly light bulbs that takes forever to be fully lit.


End file.
